In Marseille, an exhibition celebrates the art of loving through a panoply of works many of which are by photographers. Helena Almeida, Nan Goldin, Antoine d’Agata… so many artists who have made passionate love a playground.
The young woman is injured. She has blood on her knee and looks fearfully in front of her. At the same time, she seems to be removing her panties, Her face is fragmented by the light: one side in darkness, the other completely in the light.
Created by Todd Hido in 2011, this portrait illustrates well the theme of this exhibition at the Marseille Musée d’Art Contemporain (Mac); Quel Amour?! The question mark is important because it questions the plural dimension of love which generates its own set of consequences: destructive passion, sentimental break-up, happiness with life, identity problems, motherhood, life as a couple, marriage…
Quite early in the exhibition a terrific series by the Portuguese photographer Helena Almeida is on display. The artist questions the longevity of desire through some sensitive self-portraits where she stages her own body and talks to her alone about the tribulations of passing time. One of the photographs – which is used elsewhere as a poster for the exhibition – shows two legs of an elderly people, one feminine, the other masculine, tied by a rope one to another. A great metaphor for the life of a couple which perhaps achieves its acme by this march, together until the end and, at the same time, prisoners, one of the other, in the perfect contradiction into which we throw romantic life. Loving is doubtless this rope which binds the legs of two beings and requires them walk together at the same pace, in the same rhythm, so that they won’t fall down.
More information at http://culture.marseille.fr/
Information
Musée d'Art Contemporain [mac]
69 Avenue d’Haifa 13008 Marseille France
May 13, 2018 to September 02, 2018
